Cinnabar
by BregoArodShadowfax
Summary: Inspired by the first half of Shoujo Cosette episode forty four and the song Invincible by Muse. Oh. And the colour orange.


**Okay, brace yourselves for a long Authors Note…**

**1. This scene was inspired by the anime "Shoujo Cosette," namely the first half or so of episode forty-four. So that makes it AU, as per the book, because the anime doesn't follow the book exactly. **

**2. I don't know Japanese well enough to actually translate what they're saying, so for the most part the order of speaking is right, but what they're saying is more or less made up by me. Also, if you've seen the show, you can probably tell where I break from the anime and go into that whole 'artistic liberties' thing :) **

**3. The second part of this, more or less, is inspired by the song "Invincible" by Muse, mostly because it was irreversibly stuck in my head while I wrote it. Barring that, it is certainly VERY applicable to the situation, and a great song besides. **

**I think that's it. Enjoy, everyone! **

**Disclaimer: Nothing recognizable is mine, unfortunately. **

**Cinnabar**

"Have any of you seen Prouvaire?" Bossuet was breathless as he dashed around the corner from the Rue Mondetour, worry evidently in his eyes. The others, gathered near the barricade itself and trying desperately to think of ways to gain ourselves some time, shook their heads.

"I thought he was with you," Courfeyrac shrugged.

"He _was, _but then some Guard came around the corner and we split up. He didn't come back?" He looked extremely anxious now.

"No," Enjolras said calmly, or as calmly as he could, given the situation. But then, that was how he reacted to everything. He never got worked up, not even when it seemed like our chances were bad.

And they were. Very bad. We had all resigned ourselves to our fate, I think, although some were more reluctant to admit it than others. And yet, we had come through some pretty tight spots with minimal losses, thanks in part to that man…he never gave a name, but we all went on Marius' assurance that he was a friend. If he hadn't pulled that wagon over to cover the cannon hole in the barricade…

Well, it may not matter, one way or the other, I thought, huddled at the top of the barricade with binoculars in hand. I had practically volunteered to be a lookout; for no reason other than it made me feel like I was doing something important. Not that there was much to look at; the Guard was lined up at the end of the street as they had been for the last day, guns pointing at the barricade, although they would not shoot unless their commanding officer ordered it, and right now he was in his makeshift tent, from what I could see. Which gave us a bit of time; it had been decided that shooting back would only encourage them to bring out the cannon again, so we had made ourselves scarce and let them waste whatever ammunition they wanted while we were unharmed.

But this worried me. Bossuet was normally so jovial, but his eyes looked haunted. The best we could hope for was that Prouvaire was just finding a safer route back. And the worst…well, the worst was unthinkable. Prouvaire and I had always been close; he attributed it to our 'artistic nature' or something of the kind, but the fact remained that he and I could have conversations about nothing for hours while the others stared at us as if we had lost our minds. But then, the proper shade of orange for the sunset or the proper _term _to describe the proper shade of orange for the sunset were of little interest to them. I knew we were going to die; there was no fooling ourselves at this point. But to lose him like this…I shook my head, willing the thoughts away. We didn't know if he was a prisoner yet, so why would I think such horrible things?

I sighed and turned away from the street, leaning against a wooden box that made up part of the barricade. Watching the others. They were all remarkably composed, considering the situation. Even the ones who were not part of our little society; the ones who joined us on the way over or joined up with us at some point; they were also ready to die for the republic.

But I had a job to do. Turning around and raising the binoculars again, my heart nearly skipped a beat when I saw what the Guard had done in my brief absence. There was a man standing on the street, halfway between the barricade and the firing squad. And not just any man. I tried to call to the others, but it seemed that my voice would not work. So I stared at him in disbelief for a matter of moments before yelling out his name. The cry must have alerted the others that something was wrong, because when I next looked they were all near the top of the barricade with me, peering over with the same mixture of sadness and incredulity that I was sure was on my own countenance.

Marius whispered his name too, a kind of morose resignation in his deep eyes. Combeferre was standing a little lower, and when he spoke he sounded as sane and rational as he always was. "Enjolras, what can we do?"

"What do you expect me to do?" A hint of fear had crept into Enjolras' tone, but he tried to cover it by being unnaturally harsh.

"The spy," Joly said, almost to himself, but Enjolras' eyes hardened and he nodded once.

"Bring him out. We'll trade a life for a life."

Bossuet and Marius immediately slid down the back end of the barricade and into the café, going to bring out the police inspector we had discovered earlier. Javert. I watched them for a moment and then shifted my eyes back to the street, as much as I didn't want to look at the scene in front of me. The Guard were toying with us; else they would have killed him without this promenade they were inflicting on us.

And yet, looking at him, knowing that he was going to die, he was stoically unafraid; he stood tall and with a hint of a smile on his lips. Even with his arms tied behind his back and a blindfold covering his eyes, there was no indication of fear in his stance.

"Of all the things you would expect me to say, you probably wouldn't think that at this moment I would be happy."

My eyes widened at the statement, but then again, he was never what one would call _normal_. And he was speaking solely to us; I could tell.

"Prouvaire…" Enjolras whispered the name in a hushed tone, a sense of wonder creeping into his blue eyes.

"Well, I _am _happy. Happy to have known all of you, and happy to know that my death will mean something. They might expect me to beg for my life, but I have no intention of doing that!" His tone was forced; angrier, and I couldn't help but admire him for it.

"Prouvaire," Courfeyrac looked close to tears; Joly had his eyes closed, as if he couldn't bear to witness what was inevitably going to happen.

"To you," and it was obvious he meant the gunners, "I now have only this to say: Long live France."

The Guard, at some unknown signal, raised their guns at once and cocked them.

"Wait!" Enjolras sounded panicked. "Don't shoot him; we have a trade to propose!"

But we all knew it was too late. Prouvaire raised his head a little and said, in a firm voice: "Long live the future."

"_Prouvaire!" _I had never seen Enjolras this upset. He looked close to tears, and I had no doubt there were others already crying.

"I have no regrets." A smile graced his feminine features again, and at that moment, there was the horrible sound of seven guns firing at once. The smoke was so thick afterward that we couldn't see a thing, although we all knew what had happened.

I think seeing what we saw afterward broke all of us. "_NO!!!" _The cry was wrenched from my lips before I had even known I had uttered it, and now I didn't care that I was crying. Bossuet and Marius, upon bringing Javert out of the café, had stopped dead when they heard the gunshots, and even the other man, the one Marius knew, looked shocked that such a thing had occurred.

One of the sergeants looked at us, huddled on top of the barricade, and said, "Come out and take his miserable body if you want it. We'll be back," before calling the rest of his troops off. They were playing with us again, but I didn't care. I was over the barricade before he had even stopped talking, my body reacting even while my mind was frozen in shock. I dropped to my knees beside his body, pulling him onto his back and all but ripping the blindfold off. I don't know when I registered that he was still breathing, if barely, but the sight of his pain-filled eyes meeting mine brought a startling sense of reason back into my body. I reached into my jacket for a knife, pulling it out and sawing at the ropes binding his hands and arms. When I had cut through, we merely stared at each other for a few moments again before I started sobbing.

"Don't cry," his voice was low, and we both knew that he only had a few moments left on this earth. "Not for me. I told you that I regret nothing," he coughed, his body horribly convulsing before he settled back down. I pulled him carefully into my lap, not caring about the blood that now coated both of us. "Are you proud of me, at least?"

"Proud?" A strangled sob-like laugh tore from my throat. "Jehan, you…you were…proud doesn't begin to describe it. What you did, there, proved to them that we're not merely doing this for some unknown purpose. What you did showed them that we're here for a reason; because we believe in something, and that's more than they can say. If anything, I think you scared them off a bit, and I could not be happier to call you my friend."

"Good. I had hoped," he grimaced, "I had hoped that you, at least, would appreciate it. Because you and I…we share a bond, no matter where we come from or how we grew up, we have something in common that runs deeper than even our talents," he smiled then, gently reaching a hand up to brush my hair out of my eyes. I took his hand in my own and held it, willing him to hold on even though I knew it was impossible. At that range, it was incredible that he was still alive at all. As his eyes once again searched mine, I was reminded of how young he truly was. He was only a boy! And yet, it would not have mattered _who _the Guard had captured; we were nothing in their eyes. But something in Prouvaire's gaze also spoke of wisdom far exceeding his actual age, and I knew it was that knowledge that had kept him strong.

"We'll fight for you, Jehan," I promised him. "It's the least we can do to honor you. They may take us down, but plenty of them will go down with us."

"I knew you would. You've all been so wonderful to me…the brothers I never had." He closed his eyes and his breathing slowed even more. There was really nothing more to say between us, so I was mildly astonished when he opened his eyes a little and said, "Cinnabar."

"What?"

"The colour of the sunset…it just came to me. I had to tell you," he explained, and I almost laughed at the absurdness of it all. In his last moments, all the artist in him could think about was what the proper term was for the colour of orange in the sunset. "Well, I got you to smile," he looked as amused as I felt, but then his expression turned sombre again. "We'll meet again, won't we?"

"We have to," I assured him. "We would not be brought together and walk on the same path to be cruelly separated like this."

"You sound like me," he commented, and I realized it was true. "Our souls have been entwined from the beginning, I suppose. If anything," he groaned in evident pain, his hand tightening on mine. "If anything," he continued after a moment, "I am…glad I managed to hold on this long. I should like nothing better than to die in your arms."

I had started crying again at his last statement, although I knew it meant a lot to him. "I won't leave you," I promised.

"And I shall never leave you," he countered. "We're a part of each other; the artist and the writer; and I am truly blessed to have met somebody like you," he put his hand on my chest, over my heart, and I placed mine over his. "Even if sometimes I think you consider Poland to be more important than me."

I shook my head at the last comment, although I acknowledged the truth of it. But regarding his serious one, I didn't need to tell him I felt the same, because we knew it. He was the closest thing to family I had in the world, and although neither of us had ever admitted it previously, we didn't have to. Now, at the end, there were things that needed to be said, even if we both knew them already.

"Feuilly." The sound of my name made me look at him again; he was fighting through a haze a pain, blood still seeping freely from the horrendous bullet wounds. "I'm done; but you have to promise to let me go." His voice broke, and I saw tears in his large eyes.

"I promise," I lowered my head. "I promise to let your body go. But your soul will be free."

"Yes," he smiled, then, and it was genuine, despite being full of pain. He closed his eyes again, and his breathing slowed to almost nothing. I thought he was gone, but his lips moved and four words came out as nothing much more than a breath of air: _Je t'aime, mon frère." _

And he was gone.

I don't remember carrying him back to the barricade, although I must have. I don't remember anything of what happened in the few precious hours we had afterward; I had relocated to the top floor of the wine-shop, with my few painting supplies I had somehow thought to take with me.

If anyone ever found the fan, my last, I have no idea. I would like to think that somewhere, hanging on someone's wall, was the painting of that cinnabar sunset; the last work we would ever do together on the earth.

But not our last work for eternity. Certainly not. For eternity is a long time for two creative minds to be forced to do nothing. If we all end up in Heaven, no doubt the others shall have to endure many more conversations regarding the proper hues of the sunset. Speaking of which, when I see him again, I'll have to question him on the proper term of red for Enjolras' vest. We never quite got around to that.

Fin

**Whew. I lack the ability to make endings sad, apparently. Besides that, I was actually in a really good mood when I wrote this, so that may explain the hopeful tone at the end of it. **

**Plus, if you've read my stories, you'll know that my Prouvaire and Feuilly tend to be pretty good friends, so in the anime when Feuilly like FREAKED OUT when Prouvaire got shot it made me rather happy…which also kind of inspired this. **

**Well, I hope you enjoyed! **

**Sayounara, minna! **


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